World Landmarks

[nightrunn3r]

One of the things that I feel could use some work is the blandness of the world map. Not only should it be made bigger, as suggested in Lunchbox's thread, but distinctive and named areas should be put into the map.

Landmarks: The map is pretty much empty right now, except for the towns/cities. The only land feature anybody remembers is the river next to Zendar. The map could use some named valleys, canyons, forests, plains, and mountain ranges. It would make things more memerable, spice things up a bit.

Roads: Roads have already been discussed, but I'd like to add on to them. There could be bridges (although there's no point at the moment as we only have 1 river in the game), mountain passes, ect. This would also add some small strategy into the game (ie. Nobleman has to get from A to B, but there is a river between the two cities. Since there are only 2 bridges across the river, you only have to monitor those two areas.)

Faction's Lands: At the moment, troops sort of wander around aimlessly. I'm just as likely to find a swadian war party next to Halmar as I am at Sargoth. It would be more interesting to see a definitive line between the two territories. For example, raiding parties might cross over into enemy territory, but they most likely wouldn't make it too far before a patrol ran into them.
Also, although I'm sure this would be very difficult to code, on the territorial line, there could be border towns that occasionally switched factions. For example, Town X currently is in Vaegir control. Periodically, the Vaegirs send reinforcements, and the Swadians occasionally send war parties. When an enemy force enters the town, the auto battle thing runs and the victor keeps the town. The player could also participate in these battles if there is a battle going on, or they could attack an enemy border town as they wished. This could be where the Castle battles would take place if they were ever included. Failing that, it could just be a normal battle with a picture of a castle in the backround .

Unique Towns: In a previous post, I wrote up a long essay on this topic. Currently, all the towns seem pretty much the same. It would be interesting if some of them had "specialties." For example, Praven could have a good smithy, where there were lots of watered steel and hardened armor, and less of the tattered/bent weapons and armor. Sargoth could have a good stables, where there were lots of spirited/heavy high level horses, and less of the swaybacked sumpter horses.

 

[compfreak]

the whole thing in general sounds good, but i especially like the last part. this could even allow some market exploitation. say you like watered-steel nomad sabres. you happen to find one in your loot, but you and your companions already have them. in the current game, you sell them at the nearest town that can afford the cost. if towns each had a specialty, you could take advantage of that. places that have a good smithy would pay less for a good weapon, but a town focused on horses would pay dearly for one. it would give more incentive to travel, especially if the map becomes larger. hmm, i just realized i made more of an add-on than a comment. still, could be fun.

 

[Ingolifs]

Wow this post seems to be an amalgam of various different ideas stolen from other threads.

Which is what i generally do.

But yeah, i agree with pretty much everything nightrunn2r just said.
Doing such things would allow an amazing scope for telling history through landmarks. Coming across who abandoned or razed villages, or a solitary abandoned castle, for instance. Outlines of old borders and previous battles could be apparent here and there.

Interesting rock formations would be another. Having a battle atop weathertop would be good.

 

[slavetrader]

yeah would be cool to go in to battle and find a statue or a shrine or something like that on top of a hill. rockformations would be cool too.

 

[phantom_tranger]

Town X currently is in Vaegir control. Periodically, the Vaegirs send reinforcements, and the Swadians occasionally send war parties. When an enemy force enters the town, the auto battle thing runs and the victor keeps the town. The player could also participate in these battles if there is a battle going on, or they could attack an enemy border town as they wished.

if they are not a member of a army they could take control them selfs and start there own empire

 

[JohnathanStrange]

Agreed that most all of this have been suggested before, but that goes with the territory in this forum, and does have the effect of refreshing ideas that have faded from mind.

One simple idea, probably on its way to being implemented anyway, is to name the river, sea, mountains, and forests. I would be surprised if this weren't done, in fact.

One could add that the landscape could include more terrain variations: grassland, desert, rolling hills, swamps, even if it had little or no effect on world map movement or battlefield conditions. (I would rather it did affect/effect them but something is better than nothing)